World Menstrual Hygiene Day: Brands come forward to raise awareness

• We have grown up whispering every time we had to buy sanitary napkins that would then be covered in black polythene and handed over.
• Years of social conditioning have built a culture of silence around menstruation.
• To address the challenges of maintaining menstrual hygiene amid a pandemic-induced lockdown and break the taboos around it, feminine care brands have launched awareness campaigns on World Menstrual Hygiene Day.

Every year, on May 28, sanitary napkin brands come forward to raise awareness around menstrual hygiene, which is still a taboo in India. And periods don’t stop for pandemics. In fact, lockdowns intensify the impact of household level taboos and stigmas on women -- making it more difficult to manage menstruation without shame and discomfort in confined spaces.

According to UNICEF, 70% of healthcare workers are women, and shortages of essential menstrual hygiene products like sanitary pads or tampons are already affecting certain populations.

Therefore, to break the persisting stigma around menstruation, help women accept their bodies a little more and to make sure they follow safe menstrual hygiene, brands like Whisper, Stayfree, Pee Safe, Rio and UNICEF have launched powerful campaigns this year marking Menstrual Hygiene Day.

Whisper’s #KeepGirlsInSchool

Moving forward with their #KeepGirlsInSchool movement, Whisper India launched ‘Mobileshaala’ today, an initiative to provide free education while schools across the country remain closed. School closures due to the ongoing pandemic could lead to increased drop-out rates, disproportionately affecting adolescent girls.

While closing down schools temporarily might help contain the virus, it could have a permanent

effect on the future of many - especially marginalized girls, who are now even more vulnerable to dropping out of school in the absence of structured education. Uninterrupted learning is of utmost importance for these girls. With ‘Mobileshaala’, Whisper aims to #KeepGirlsInSchool. It is a phone-based learning system that gives free access to curriculum-based education modules on key subjects like English, Science and menstrual hygiene education.


UNICEF

The UNICEF has launched a week-long campaign called #RedDotChallenge to ensure all girls manage their periods safely and with dignity. Organisation’s National Youth Ambassador Hima Das and celebrities like Sejal Kumar, Meghna Kaur, Aashna Shroff, Manushi Chillar and Dia Mirza, Aditi Rao Hydari, Diana Penty, Neeru Bajwa came forward to support the movement.


Pee Safe’s #BleedYourWay

Pee Safe has launched #bleedyourway, an integrated campaign, marking Menstrual Hygiene Day with known faces including Kirti Kulhari and Sayani Gupta, among others. Pee Safe aims to break the taboo around menstruation and encourage women to #bleedyourway.

Pee Safe’s campaign addresses some prominent themes including sex during periods, vaginal health, use of sustainable period care products, PMS, among others. The brand will also be distributing menstrual cups to underprivileged girls through an NGO.


RIO

In our society, women have normalized the extremeness of their period due to lack of awareness about heavy flow and therefore do not realize that their condition might require them to use different products than the norm. This often results in leakage, staining, the napkin overflowing, a higher rate of infections because of leaving on a full pad for longer than it should in addition to rashes and discomfort because of having to compensate by using multiple pads at once. All of these are signs of poor menstrual hygiene practices.

This year on Menstrual Hygiene Day, the brand addressed this issue through a campaign with a series of analogies to showcase how women feel when they use a regular napkin during heavy flow and calls out the oxymoronic habit that we have become accustomed with. This is questioned through instances that elaborate on the need for the usage of the right product that can handle heavy flow, which is essential for good menstrual hygiene.